Mempool Observations

I’ve been running a website called mempool.observer for a few years now. Since fall 2019, this site includes my Bitcoin Transaction Monitor showing network activity. I’ve written about some of my observations there. My goal is to educate and inform Bitcoin users about some of the weird activity on the network.

While these Mempool Observations are fun to write, the process is very time-consuming. You can support me here, which enables me to spend more of my time researching and writing. If you work for a company interested in improving your on-chain foot- and fingerprint, then I’d be more than happy to chat. If you are working on improving Bitcoin privacy, especially on removing wallet fingerprints, then I’d like to contribute the things I’ve learned starring at my Bitcoin Transaction Monitor. My contact information can be found at the bottom of this page.

Image for Following the Blockchain.com feerate recommendations
July 13, 2020

Following the Blockchain.com feerate recommendations

Transactions sent with Blockchain.com wallets make up for about a third of all Bitcoin transactions. A methodology to identify these transactions is described and used. Insights about the wallet-usage are derived from the resulting dataset. The privacy implications and possible improvements are …

Image for The daily BitMEX broadcast at 13:08 UTC
May 4, 2020

The daily BitMEX broadcast at 13:08 UTC

At around 13:00 UTC every day, BitMEX, a cryptocurrency exchange and derivative trading platform, broadcasts multiple megabytes of large transactions into the Bitcoin network. This affects the transaction fees paid during European afternoons and US business hours. The transaction size could be …

Image for The stair-pattern in time-locked Bitcoin transactions
April 27, 2020

The stair-pattern in time-locked Bitcoin transactions

Some of the regularly used Bitcoin wallets, for example, the Bitcoin Core wallet and the Electrum Bitcoin Wallet, set the locktime of newly constructed transactions to the current block height. This is as an anti-fee-sniping measure and visible as a stair-like pattern when plotting time-locked …